This One Time, At Band Camp
by murderofonerose
Summary: A drum and bugle corps has formed in Dethklok's honor, but the boys still have yet to decide if it's brutal enough to perform their songs. Ofdensen has arranged for a special rehearsal at Mordland -- so let the marching begin.


**Disclaimer:** Not mine.**  
Warnings: **Uh, none? Maybe for accidental tuba subtext. This is another one of those rare instances where I did not write slash.  
**Words:** 2578

My first fic for this fandom, ahahaha yay. Because I really, seriouslies want a Dethklok themed marching band to happen. (Yes, I am a band geek. Or used to be anyway. But it's okay -- band is metal right? Well, no. Not really. But it can be pretty brutal sometimes.)

There will be, maybe… seven more parts to this, but I haven't written them yet so if anyone wants to yell out suggestions, that's always fun.

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**This One Time, At Band Camp**

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The light that poured in as two hooded servants pushed the heavy double doors open was nearly blinding. It wasn't quite noon yet but to the members of Dethklok it felt like the crack of dawn, and Pickles was only on his third beer in an attempt to quell yesterday's hangover. It felt like the sun should still be down around the eastern horizon, wherever the fuck that was. It felt more bright and brutal than a summer midnight at the North Pole (which they had visited once, and not found all that impressive).

Charles Ofdensen didn't so much as squint.

"All right," he said briskly, leading them out into the stadium towards a small group of people waiting for them on the currently empty racetrack. "You all wanted to see the marching band that's been formed in your honor, so here they are. Try not to do anything that would injure yourselves or your reputations."

Nathan grunted. Of the five of them, he was the only one who had already been more or less aware that they actually did have a football field in the center of the track. He'd never actually _used_ it, but it had always been a small point of pride for him knowing that he owned one anyway.

"Yeah, whatever," he said. "So… this is band camp?" He squinted off across the track and towards the field, where most of the band could be seen standing around in clumps of ten or more. Charles was leading them towards the closest of these.

Pickles snickered. "This one time, at band camp…"

"You's said dat a billion times alreadies," Toki complained. "_Whats_ happensed at bands camp?"

"Thet's jest the joke," the drummer replied. "If ya don't get the reference ah'm not gonna explain it to ya. What do I look like, an encyclapedia?"

"Yes, Nathan," Charles said before anyone had a chance to respond to that, "this is band camp."

They were close enough now to be in hearing range of the fourteen people waiting to meet them, all in slightly ragged shorts and t-shirts. Not very official looking – but then, there were a few okay-looking ladies in the group, with mostly bare legs. So that was okay.

All they actually knew about marching bands was limited to a single fact, the only really important one, that they knew about _this_ marching band: it played exclusively Dethklok songs. There was a lot of boring legal shit involved that determined which ones they could or couldn't get their hands on to make arrangements of – Charles handled that – and ultimately it was just a couple hundred people running around and blowing a lot of air on a big patch of grass, but they'd listened to some recordings a few days ago and it didn't sound like crap.

The final ruling, however, was something they'd decided to make in person.

"This is the leadership team of the Dethguard drum and bugle corps," Charles continued. "For this afternoon, they'll be taking on the responsibilities of keeping you boys entertained and as out of trouble as possible." He gave those assembled a look, almost daring anyone to challenge those points, before pointing out the different leaders as he named their positions. "Drum major, assistant drum majors, drumline section leader—"

"Oh heey, drums," Pickles interrupted, giving the young woman indicated a quick onceover and a lopsided grin.

"—Mellophone section leaders, trumpet section leaders—"

Toki perked up out of a slight sulk at that. "Oh boys, I wants to learns de trumpests! Skwisgaar, you betters nots copies me dis time," he added, glancing over at the Swede and attempting, with limited success, to mimic the look Charles had used a moment ago.

"Pft," Skwisgaar replied, crossing his arms disdainfully.

"—Trombone section leaders, euphonium section leaders—"

"Euph…" Nathan frowned, trying to wrap his brain around the word. It didn't sound like one he'd heard before. "Euphonimism?"

"No, that'sh euphamischm," Murderface supplied.

"That's not what he said," Nathan growled.

"No, but dat's ams what your moms said," Skwisgaar announced with a smirk. "Last night." He recrossed his arms. "Onsides my bed."

"—And contra-bass section leader," Charles finished. "Ladies and gentlemen, this, as I'm sure you're all aware, is Dethklok."

Murderface, probably on the verge of adding to the discussion of Nathan's mother, stumbled over whatever he'd been about to say in a way that sent a glob of spit sliding down his chin. "Bass?" he repeated, wiping it off with the back of his hand. Everyone who'd seen it happen winced and found something else to look at.

Except for Charles, who was paid to expect and overlook that sort of thing. "No, not actually a bass. That's just another way of saying tuba."

"Well why couldn't you juscht schay that, then?" Murderface demanded, scowling. "Why'd you have to raishe all my hopesh and then schtep on them like a big shtupid dream-crusching robot? What did I ever do to desherve that?"

In the background, Nathan had already stopped paying attention and was saying to Skwisgaar, "I don't see… what my mom has to do with anything. She's not even here, she's in… uh, Florida…"

"If ya say so, Nat'en," Pickles said with a snicker, saluting him with his beer.

Skwisgaar shrugged. "Whatevers, nevers mined. Hey, Ofsendens, where did you saids de guitars am was?"

"There ain't any," Pickles told him. "It's a drum 'n' bugle thing, they jest have drums an'… bugles. Ya know, like trumpets 'n' shit." They ignored Toki's squeak of enthusiasm at the further mention of trumpets.

"Oh. Well den what de fucks am I doings here?"

One of the marching band people chose that moment to speak up. He was the drum major, which the band knew not because they had been paying attention to their manager's introductions but because the words DRUM MAJOR were written in big block letters across the front of his shirt. They had gotten a vague impression that this was supposed to mean something somewhat important.

"Actually, um…" He stopped and glanced at Charles for confirmation that they were allowed to speak to Dethklok, which Charles gave in the form of a curt nod. "Actually we do have one guitar, in the pit. But they're, well… in Wyoming."

"Why woulds a mosh pit bes in Wynomings?" Toki asked.

"You're schaying it wrong," Murderface pointed out.

"Wy-gnome-inks?" Skwisgaar tried. "Wayg…"

"Nope, that'sch shtill not right."

"You guys have your own mosh pit?" Nathan asked. "Seriously?"

The drum major seemed about to answer, but the drumline section leader cut in smoothly. "The pit is the non-marching percussion. Their bus driver was given…" She smirked, and behind her some of the other section leaders looked vaguely amused as if in spite of themselves. "_Creative_ directions."

Nathan frowned. "Huh. I thought everyone knows where Mordhaus is. Fucking fans keep driving by and yelling shit, or taking pictures…"

"Yeah, but bus drivers can be pretty gullible."

Murderface nodded slowly. "That is scho true."

"Quite," Charles agreed, deadpan. There was no hint of impatience in his voice, but it was still relatively early in the day. If he just let them ramble along at their own pace they could be standing around for hours. "Are you boys ready to meet the rest of the band now?"

Toki's eyes widened, and he looked around at the fourteen people they'd already kind of been introduced to. "Dere's _mores_?"

One of the people nodded – a big guy, almost as intimidating as Nathan but with significantly shorter hair and not so much of a default 'angry' look. "We're just leadership. There's actually two hundred and thirty-five of us."

"If you count the color guard," someone else added.

The big guy blinked. "Why wouldn't you?"

"We have two hundred _musicians_," the drum major clarified with a put-upon sigh. "Minus the sixteen members of the pit, at the moment."

"Wowee," Toki said, eyes still wide. "Dat's a _lots_ mores."

"Yew didn't know thet?" Pickles asked.

"I can _counts_, Pickle…"

Skwisgaar scoffed. "No, idiot, he means dat ams a lot of people in de marchink bands."

"I knows dat!" the other guitarist insisted.

"You guys," Nathan snapped. "Shut up. We're going to meet the fucking band. Now."

The drum major drew himself up in an attempt to look important, but he was a little too scrawny to make that work. And a little too not famous. "Before we get started with that…" He paused, coughed, looked embarrassed, and cleared his throat nervously. "I'd just really like to thank you for lending us the use of your field. On, on behalf of all of us, everyone. It's a great honor."

It was nothing they hadn't heard before, of course, and the five members of the world's most brutal metal band remained unimpressed. Skwisgaar found himself too disinterested to even look in that general direction, wishing he'd brought his Explorer with him. The guitar was lying forgotten in – well, he wasn't sure actually, but probably somewhere he'd been just before passing out last night.

"Well schure, we're juscht great guysh that way," Murderface said casually. Then he scowled and took a small but threatening step forward. "But thish had better be good, or _elshe_."

Properly intimidated, the drum major took a corresponding step back and cleared his throat again. "Y-yes, of course."

The drumline section leader rolled her eyes. "Okay then, let's get this party started… The drumline warms up separate from the band. Who's with me?" she asked, already turning to head or the far end zone.

"Ooh, me, deefinitely," Pickles said quickly. He trailed after her, laughing a bit when he saw that the back of her shirt had '_Take it or leave it, drumass_' written on it.

"Hey, what ams those ladies overs dere?" Skwisgaar asked suddenly, squinting in the bright, almost-noon sunlight. He made a mental note to get a klokateer to find him some sunglasses in a minute. And his guitar. "They ams band meme-boirs?"

"_That_," said the big section leader who had spoken up earlier, "is the color guard. They spin flags, sabers, riffles – name anything, they can perform with it. They've already started their warm-up routine…"

_Anything, huh?_ Skwisgaar thought. "I ams there," he announced, and with that he headed for the back of the field by the right forty-five.

Charles gestured for one of the klokateers to follow the Swede. "Make sure he stays a safe distance from the weapons," he instructed under his breath.

With two members of Dethklok already occupied, some of the remaining section leaders got a little bolder. Two who had been standing near the back of the group, after a quick discussion, moved forward to catch Toki's attention.

"You said you wanted to play the trumpet, sir?" one of them asked.

"Um…" For a moment, Toki looked torn between this and following Skwisgaar to meet beautiful girls. Then the moment passed, and the desire for novel experiences won out. "Ja okays, I does that. Takes me to's de trumps-sets," he ordered.

This left only Nathan and Murderface, and neither of them had voiced any particular preference as to which section they ended up with. Several of the marching people seemed about to pounce, but it was the big guy who got a word in first.

"Hey, what about you?" he asked Nathan. "You look like you could handle a tuba."

Nathan frowned. He knew what a tuba was in the sense that it was an instrument and that you were supposed to blow into it and that somewhere on the thing was a little lever or button or something that you could hit to make spit come out… but he couldn't picture what one looked like. "Uh… How big is it?"

The guy, obviously the tuba section leader, shrugged. "About the size of your drummer folded in half, but a little smaller."

"Huh." Nathan tried to picture that. "Brutal."

As the front man followed the tuba section leader off into the distance, Murderface turned to Charles. "Sho, what the fuck am _I_ schupposed to do?"

Charles looked up from his watch and shrugged. "Pick a section and investigate," he advised.

Murderface frowned at the remaining leadership, who seemed even less eager to speak up now that he was the only one still there. Some of them were even trying to drift off as inconspicuously as possible, drum major included.

"What'sh left?"

"Ah… mellophones, euphoniums, and trombones." Charles checked his watch again. "Excuse me, I need to leave for a meeting with the show technicians to negotiate rights to the new songs. I'll be back in two hours." He paused, then added a bland, "Have fun."

The manager retreated back inside, leaving Murderface to reflect that this was always what happened (even if it sometimes wasn't). In school he had _always_ been the last person picked for games (unless it was the sort of game everyone knew you could win if you played dirty enough, which he did), at parties he was _always_ the last person to be offered a piece of cake (unless he stole it first), and whenever Dethklok started rehearsing a new song he was _always_ the last one to get his part (unless Toki was passed out somewhere and Skwisgaar either couldn't find him or couldn't wake him up). Murderface had come to expect it, but that didn't mean it didn't still piss him off.

He fixed a baleful glare at the people standing nearest to him.

"Sho what do you dildosh do?" he challenged, daring them to speak to him for a change.

One of them, a guy who looked like he was trying very hard to grow a beard but failing – miserably, and in patches – glanced at the two people standing nearest to him, then said, "We help direct the band."

Murderface scowled. Directors had power, and power interested him; this conversation might actually be worth his time. "Help who?"

"Him," one of the others said and pointed at the drum major, who by then had managed to shuffle his way just out of earshot. "We're the assistant drum majors."

"You work for that guy?" Murderface smirked contemptuously. "Scheriously?"

The third assistant drum major shrugged. "Yeah…"

Murderface considered this for a moment. "I bet we could take him," he said slowly.

The first assistant drum major – in his mind, Murderface had already dubbed him 'Patches' – scratched thoughtfully at his jaw. "What, you mean… stage a coup?"

"Fuck yesh! That dildo-licker wouldn't shtand a chanche," he said confidently. "Juscht schow me all the shtuff he hasch to do and I'll do it a thoushand timesh better. And then, we take over."

"Right on!" The second assistant drum major – she could be 'Bubbles', he decided – twisted her ponytail in her fingers excitedly. "That fucker can't keep a steady tempo."

With a carefully neutral expression, the third assistant drum major leaned over and whispered to the first, "Is this a good idea? I mean, that's true, but would this guy be any better?"

"Who cares?" Patches whispered back. "Everyone just listens to the drums for tempo anyway. Fucking snares are running the show." He turned his attention back to Murderface (who was, after all, pretty damn famous and important) and said, "I'm in. We'll have you conducting in no time."

The third – Murderface couldn't think of a nickname for her – shrugged. "Yep," she said, agreeably enough. "Lickety-split."

And with that, Dethklok's first marching band rehearsal had officially begun.


End file.
